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Building the Romobot

My claim that Jason Garrett will try to make Tony Romo more Troy Aikman-like drew some strong responses. Some readers opined that Romo lacked Aikman’s arm strength. Others claimed Garrett might be trying to make Romo something that he’s not because Aikman was a master of accuracy and Romo could not measure up.

Bunk. I was watching tape of Romo riddling the Colts defense in his 19 for 23 day (football withdrawl strikes hard) and felt strong deja vu. I saw the ball coming out quickly on timing patters. I saw Romo fire darts inside tiny coverage boxes to Jason Witten. I saw Romo deliver three perfect slants to Terry Glenn, which set up a pump and go on Dallas’ winning TD drive.

I saw a guy who looked every bit as accurate at old number eight. Then I decided to see if this was a one-game fluke.

Only once in his legendary career did Aikman top the 65.3 completion percentage Romo posted last year. And he never approached Romo’s 8.61 yard per attempt. In fact, Aikman never topped 8.0 YPA in any season.

That’s an otherworldly five games. Romo stayed within the program, built on his training camp habits of reading and releasing the ball quickly and kept his head. Amazing plays seemed to come in course, but they all appeared natural. He would have been and should have been 5-0 had the Cowboys not committed a dozen penalties and botched a field goal block in Washington.

Romo’s dazzling bomb to Witten in the Meadowlands obscured a poor performance. For the first time, blitzes got into his head. He missed open receivers. He tried forcing passes into covered ones and his fundamentals became inconsistent. Bill Parcells told the press post game that QB coach Chris Palmer warned him in the first quarter that Romo was “off the reservation” that day.

Teams began defensing him differently from that point, keeping their ends wide to prevent Romo from rolling out and devastating them with deep balls.

He was also done in by lack of support. Note the rush totals for the three December losses. (I put the Saints total in parenthesis because this is what the Cowboys produced after Julius Jones’ 77 yard rush on the first play from scrimmage.) In every instance the Cowboys could not muster 50 yards against three defenses (the Saints, Eagles and Lions) who struggled stopping the run.

Romo showed his mortality. I doubt many QBs could compensate for such anemic rushing attacks, much less his team’s suddenly porous secondary. Nevertheless, Romo deserves some blame. He undermined a sterling 111 QB rating against Detroit by fumbling three times, twice inside his own 20.

That said, the new system offers the possibilty of reclaiming the early Romo. It will emphasize speed, timing and quick releases. And Romo has demonstated without question that he has the accuracy and arm strength to make it work.

What nobody knows, not even Romo himself, is whether he can match Aikman’s maturity and consistency; Troy put six consecutive seasons together at Romo’s ‘06 level, never mind his Pantheon-quality postseason play.

If you doubt Romo, raise emotional and cognitive questions. He’s got the physical skills to make Troy’s old playbook work.

I heard a homobot was something that pretended to date country superstars....then got pounded in the rear by his best WR, and couldn't catch Field Goal snaps b/c there was a permanent layer of KY on his fingers.......

I heard a homobot was something that pretended to date country superstars....then got pounded in the rear by his best WR, and couldn't catch Field Goal snaps b/c there was a permanent layer of KY on his fingers.......